This blog is about various boat and environment related topics that I care to comment on. First and foremost, this blog is about skin on frame boats, their construction and use, as well as paddle and other stuff related to skin boat use.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Hokusai's boats

Hokusai has long been my favorite Japanese artist. But for a long time I hadn't looked at his work. Recently, some new Hokusai books were published and I realized that quite a few of Hokusai's wood cuts had boats in them. By western standards, the boats all look curious, square sterned and high bowed. But they do resemble Portuguese surf boats to some extent.

Portuguese had a lot of places where harbors were missing and fishermen had to launch through the surf. As a result, the boats had high bows that would keep the surf from swamping the boats.Japanese boats apparently had similar conditions to contend with. Makes me want to build some skin on frame small scale surf boats.

The other curious thing about the Japanese boats is the dotted lines along the edges of the planks. Were these boats sewn together like some Polynesian boats?

1 comment:

bill samson
said...

Looks rather like the Point Hope kayak, or the King Island type but bigger. Certainly the King Island kayaks were launched into big seas and I would guess the Point Hope type would have been used close to shore in surf.

About Me

I like to look into old and mostly abandoned technologies that people used before the industrial age and also technologies that were used in non agricultural societies. I have a hunch that some of these technologies will again become relevant in a more resource-poor future.
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